Warren Mayor James Fouts secretly taped by councilman

By
Norb Franz, The Macomb Daily

Saturday, May 11, 2013

A Warren city employee doesn’t think she’ll get the apology she wants after filing a complaint against Mayor James Fouts and one of his high-ranking appointees for their remarks during a secretly-taped conversation.

A city union filed a grievance on behalf of Marcia Jamroz for what she described as “personal attacks” and “verbal abuse” involving how she got the job three years ago as the administrator of the Warren City Council office.

According to the written grievance, “This meeting was a display of harassment, verbal abuse, defamation of character and intimidation.”

But the accused administrator, Public Service Director Richard Sabaugh, charged that the grievance is politically motivated to hurt Fouts’ re-election chances in 2015.

Jamroz, who has worked for the city for 27 years, insisted on accompanying Councilman Scott Stevens to a meeting in February with Fouts and four mayoral appointees to discuss the council’s next budget.

In a recording of the meeting obtained by The Macomb Daily, less than six minutes into the meeting Fouts said the spending plan outlined for the council appeared fine. He then questioned Stevens about why the administrator job was made a civil service position in 2009.

“It should be an appointed position,” the mayor said with Jamroz present. “You’ve given up control. You should have the latitude to appoint who you want.”

Sabaugh, the mayor’s top adviser, said Stevens — as the elected council secretary — should have sole discretion to fill the council administrator post without regard to civil service rules. Sabaugh then repeatedly claimed the hiring of Jamroz violated the city charter.

In 2009, the Warren Civil Service Commission created the job description and accepted applications. Jamroz, who had spent more than 20 years as the administrative assistant to the city attorney, finished at the top and was appointed by Councilman Keith Sadowski, the council’s secretary at the time.

During the budget discussion, Fouts blamed the change on Jeffrey Schroder, a former assistant city attorney.

“Jeff Schroder pulled this crap on the side. It’s a lot of crap he’s pulled,” the mayor is heard on tape.

During the meeting, Sabaugh claimed he learned Jamroz couldn’t get along with a former city attorney and that Schroder “rescued” her. Jamroz questioned that claim and said her hiring was above board, adding the council office administrator was switched from an appointed job to a civil service one represented by a small United Auto Workers group.

“The point is you violated the city charter, Marcia. You violated the city charter,” Sabaugh said.

Jamroz criticized the administration for raising the issue as it did in recent years. Fouts urged Jamroz to sit down, but she stormed out of the meeting, invoking her legal right to have a union official present.

“Now see that? If she was appointed, she wouldn’t walk out like that,” Fouts is heard on tape, repeatedly telling Stevens he needs a loyal underling. Sabaugh and Fouts suggested that officials get a legal opinion from City Attorney James Biernat stating the council office administrator must be an appointed job not involving civil service testing.

“You’ve got a tiger that you don’t need,” Fouts told Stevens, “and you could put your thumb on her. If she got up, you could say, ‘Martha — Marcia — sit your ass down here, you’re not leaving till I tell you to.’ ”

Stevens then admitted to Fouts, Sabaugh and the other administrators in the room that he wanted Jamroz to leave the room if the issue re-surfaced.

In his “management response” letter filed as Jamroz’s immediate supervisor, Stevens wrote: “Richard Sabaugh and Mayor Fouts went after her like a pair of jackals that had singled out an antelope.” He added, “Had this type of spectacle taken place in high school, both Fouts and Sabaugh would be expelled…”

Stevens told The Macomb Daily he recorded the budget meeting because he anticipated Fouts would renew complaints about Jamroz’s hiring.

“The guy’s out of control. There’s no way around it,” the second-term councilman said.

Ulterior motives?Fouts has enjoyed strong, majority support on the seven-member council, all of whom he endorsed in the 2011 election.

“In my opinion, he’s not satisfied with the control he has of council,” Stevens said. “He wants control of the office.”

Fouts did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment for this report.

Last month, two phone conversations between Fouts and one of his appointees who secretly recorded the calls triggered a Michigan State Police investigation into whether the mayor violated a state law that prohibits the malicious use of a telecommunications device to threaten or intimidate a person. The Macomb County Prosecutor’s Office ruled that the mayor’s recorded tirade was not a crime because the individuals angrily blamed by Fouts for political woes were not a party to the phone calls.

Sabaugh said Friday that he was surprised by Jamroz’s grievance, yet feels it’s an attempt by the mayor’s detractors to harm his boss’s reputation.

“I think they’re piling on now, trying to embarrass the mayor,” he said.

Sabaugh, himself a former Warren councilman and Macomb County commissioner, pointed out that Jamroz has received more than $3,000 in overtime pay in each of the past two years, and has accumulated nearly 100 hours of compensatory time. An appointed council office administrator would not be entitled to overtime and would save taxpayers money, he said.

Jamroz, however, feels if she treated the public the way she was treated by Fouts and Sabaugh, she’d be fired.

“It’s mind-boggling to put any kind of negative feelings in my head to say I’ve done something wrong because they want to politically bully and harass me,” she said. “I was just appalled.”

The status of her grievance is uncertain.

Greg Suma, president of the UAW Local 412, Unit 59, declined to comment.